WASHINGTON – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this week that it
will not extend special protection to Arizona’s gray wolf population,
known as the Mexican gray wolf.

The announcement Tuesday was a response to petitions
from conservationists who sought to reclassify the Mexican gray wolf as
an “endangered subspecies” or “distinct population segment.” The
request was aimed at protecting Mexican gray wolves should the
government decide to take all other wolves off the endangered species
list.

The decision to not reclassify the Mexican gray wolf population
“doesn’t change anything right now,” said Eva Sargent, director of the
Southwest program for Defenders of Wildlife. But she expects the
government to publish a new nationwide plan for gray wolves within “the
next few months” and said it is difficult to predict what that plan will
do.

“We don’t know what they’re going to do. They might delist them everywhere, or just in certain states or regions,” Sargent said.

“We need to make sure that wolves are protected until they are
recovered, particularly the very rare Mexican wolf, with only about 50
individuals in the wild in the entire world,” she said.

Most gray wolves
are found in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Wisconsin and
Michigan, said Rick Sayers, division chief of the endangered species
program at the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Wolves in each of those areas have been taken off the endangered species list due to their recovery in recent decades, he said.

The gray wolf population in Wyoming is the most recent group to be
taken off the list. As of Oct. 1, the once-endangered animals are now
fair game for hunters there.

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By contrast, the Mexican gray wolf population is not recovering as
quickly, said Chris Bagnoli, interagency field team leader for the
Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project.

The department estimated that there were at least 58 Mexican gray
wolves last year in their range of Arizona and western New Mexico.

The original goal for Mexican gray wolf recovery, set in 1982, was to
have 100 wolves in the wild. But Bagnoli said that goal is being
re-evaluated because having 100 wolves would not necessarily mean the
population is “fully recovered,” or able to be taken off the endangered
species list.

“There’s a lot of heated discussions about it,” Bagnoli said of the
debate over the new recovery target. “You have to maintain recovery
levels, but we would like to reach a point where it can be managed like
every other species.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service still has the power to reclassify the
Mexican gray wolf at any time. Tuesday’s Federal Register notice said
the Service is still reviewing “appropriate conservation status of all
gray wolves … and we may revise the current listing.”

If the service decides to “delist” the overall wolf population,
Mexican gray wolves would no longer be protected, unless the government
exercised its authority to reclassify them.

Sayers, of Fish and Wildlife, said he cannot predict whether the
service will change the status of the general wolf population. But
Sargent said she expects the decision on delisting the rest of the wolf
population to be made by early next year, increasing the urgency for
action on Mexican gray wolves.

“Mexican gray wolves need to be protected wherever they are found,” she said.

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A captive Mexican gray wolf at the Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility in New Mexico in 2011. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declined to identified the wolves, found in Arizona and New Mexico, as separate from the larger gray wolf population.

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